Early life and education

Maria Shukshina was born in Moscow, the daughter of Russian writer, film director and actor Vasily Shukshin and Russian film actress Lidiya Fedoseyeva-Shukshina. The actress has an older half-sister Anastasia, and younger sister Olga.^[2]

She graduated from the translation department of Moscow's Institute of Foreign Languages. After the institute she worked as an interpreter and broker on the Russian commodity exchange.^[2]

Film and television career

In 1969, at the age of one and a half years, Shukshina starred in the segment "Brother" in the anthology film of Vasily Shukshin Strange people. And at the age of five Masha, together with her sister Olga, played the daughters of the Rastorguev family in the film Happy Go Lucky.^[2]

Two years later, the actress appeared again on the screen. She played the role of Vishnyak's daughter in the film directed by Sergei Nikonenko Birds over the City.^[2]

In the mid-1990s, Maria Shukshina starred in several popular films. In Karen Shakhnazarov's film American Daughter (1995), the actress played a practical and unsentimental businesswoman, who flees from her husband along with her young daughter to America.^[2] In the same year Shukshina played a similar role in the film What a Wonderful Game by Pyotr Todorovsky where Maria appeared as a beautiful student who, without hesitation, hands over her classmates to state security agencies.^[2]

In the early 2000s in Alla Surikova's comedy television series Perfect Couple the actress played a brief role of a journalist who interviews Armen Dzhigarkhanyan.^[2]

Maria had a lead role in Vsevolod Shilovsky's television series People and Shadows: The Secrets of the Puppet Theater (2001).^[2]

In the 2004 television series Dear Masha Berezina played Katya, who independently tries to make a career in the modeling business.^[2]

In the serial film Brezhnev, the actress appears as Nina Korovyakova, the last romantic interest of Leonid Brezhnev, a woman who had a certain influence on the omnipotent general secretary.^[2]

In the popular melodramatic series Take me with you (2008) Maria played the main role - Maria Karetnikova, a rich woman, disillusioned with her life of luxury.^[2]

The actress played the character of Polina Ivanova in the melodrama of Vlad Furman Terrorist Ivanova. In the film the son of Polina Ivanova becomes a cripple through the fault of an influential businessman, and her husband dies in jail. The woman decides to take revenge.^[2]

In the drama Bury Me Behind the Baseboard, shot by director Sergei Snezhkin based on the self-titled autobiographical novel by Pavel Sanayev, Shukshina played the role of Olga, the weak-willed mother of the main hero Sasha.^[2]

From the latest bright projects of Maria Shukshina, you can name the films: Burnt by the Sun 2: Exodus, Deli Case No. 1, Made in the USSR, The Fire-place Guest, Who, If not I?, Stanitsa, Yolki 3, Good-bye, boys, Mannequin, Outgoing nature, Husband on call, His own stranger, Yolki 5, Such work.^[2]

In 2018 she played Oksana Godman, mother of the protagonist Alex Godman, in the BBC crime drama McMafia.

Television host

From 1999 to 2014, Maria Shukshina hosted the program Wait for Me on Channel One. She a member of the judging panel on the fifth season of Minute of Fame. In 2018 she is to host the talk show A Visit in the Morning.^[3]